The problem that our industry runs into (NB: not just this industry) with critiques like McIlroy's is that people remember the highlights ("Haha, LP is silly and makes fragile, Faberge eggs instead of robust systems.") instead of remembering the context (Knuth was asked to illustrate LP, he did, McIlroy critiqued the monolithic resulting program more than the LP style itself).
This happens repeatedly (not just this example, many others), and since the vast majority of people are never going to go back to the original sources we have a giant game of telephone. Generation after generation are given a variation on the summary theme, further and further removed from the original context. The speaker will elaborate on the criticism, but since they didn't read it themselves they're actually just bullshitting (semi-honest effort as they're pulling in the information they were given, but it's still bullshitting because they didn't bother to read).
This happens repeatedly (not just this example, many others), and since the vast majority of people are never going to go back to the original sources we have a giant game of telephone. Generation after generation are given a variation on the summary theme, further and further removed from the original context. The speaker will elaborate on the criticism, but since they didn't read it themselves they're actually just bullshitting (semi-honest effort as they're pulling in the information they were given, but it's still bullshitting because they didn't bother to read).